The Fury Beneath

Chapter 1Monday, June 8​ 12:05 AM

Evan Carpenter had come here before. The old woman who owned the property never ventured this far up the mountain. And for all the threats and no trespassing signs, she did little to keep them out.Shayla wasn't the first girl Evan had brought up to the hot springs on Legna Simms’s property, but she didn't know that. She was new to Whistler Marsh. Her dad worked for a fancy genetics company that recently opened an office in town. The company had big plans for a laboratory or retreat center or something. It didn’t matter to Evan one way or the other, what mattered was the stunning girl standing in front of him.It was the perfect night; the sky was filled with stars. Steam rolled off the surface of the hot spring, inviting them in for a dip. Nature’s hot tub implied everything he wanted from tonight, without him having to say it.Evan unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it off, then started on his belt.“Are you sure about this?” Shayla asked, her hand at the top button of her pink blouse.He was so close. Shayla only needed a little coaxing. If he could get her in that water, then the rest of the details could sort themselves out later.He gave her his lazy smile, the one he used on all the other girls. The one that made them melt into him. “No harm done. It’s just a little dip. We won’t stay long.”She stared at him, unconvinced. He was going to have to work a little harder. He reached over and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “C’mon now,” he said in his silkiest voice. “The old bat who lives down the hill is half deaf, and she's probably been asleep since before sunset.”“Yeah, but what about wild animals, or . . .”“Or what?” he let his fingers trail softly across her collarbone. “Hillbillies?” Evan laughed. “You've seen too many horror movies.” His fingertip trailed down her arm until it reached her hand. “Besides, I'm here, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”He moved her hand to the top button of her blouse and helped her slip the button out of the catch. Then he helped her with the second and third as he kissed her soft pink lips. He could taste the strawberry lip gloss and smell her sweet perfume.Shayla pulled back suddenly, but not because of him. A branch snapped nearby. Evan glanced over her shoulder into the woods. “It’s nothing, babe. Just a squirrel—” but he stopped. A pair of crimson eyes stared out of the darkness, watching them. His heart caught in his throat. What was that thing? A mountain lion? A bear?Evan lowered his voice, “Shayla, come to me slowly.”“Evan, no. I’m scared,” she started. “Let’s get—.”Evan dove at her and knocked her to the ground as the animal lunged into the clearing. She pounded her fists on his shoulder. “Get away from me, you monster! I said no!” she shouted too close to his ear. But her protests died in her throat as a deep guttural sound filled the clearing.Shayla peered wildly around until her eyes landed on the animal. She grabbed Evan’s arm and screamed again.The animal growled loudly and disappeared into the trees again in a flash of fur. Evan pushed to his feet, keeping himself between Shayla and the beast. He hadn’t gotten a good look at it, but his guess was a mountain lion. It didn’t appear stocky like a bear. And it was fast.“Evan, what do we do? Is it gone? Oh my gosh, I’m too young to die. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be eaten,” Shayla began to whimper, as she scrambled to her feet.She was in full-blown panic mode. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” Evan said in his calmest voice. He had to keep his head. Calm her down. They’d be okay if she didn’t do anything stupid.Movement rustled behind him, and he tore his gaze away from where the animal had appeared. He caught sight of her blonde ponytail bobbing towards the woods at top speed. Panic rose in his chest. “Shayla, don’t! Come back!”Tree branches swished behind him. His eyes darted back, searching for the animalHe wanted to run after her. Catch up with her. Protect her from danger. But it was too late. He had to distract the beast. Get it to focus on him so she could get away. He shouted as loud as he could and ran across the clearing, hoping to intercept the animal.Fifty feet down the curvy rutted trail, he stopped. The shadow of the creature loomed in the middle of the path ahead. Shayla was pinned beneath its front paw. Her blonde ponytail catching the moonlight. His eyes went wide with panic.He scooped up a large branch from the ground and lifted it over his head as he charged. He swung but missed as the animal darted back into the foliage. It was fast.He reached down and pulled Shayla to her feet. She was shaking, trembling, but alive. “Shayla, go. Get down the mountain. Go to my car, My phone is in there, call the Sheriff!”Shayla didn’t move, she was frozen with terror. Blood trickled from a thick scratch on her shoulder. She’d need medical attention.“Shayla!” Evan shouted in her face. “You have to go without me if you want to live. Go get help. I’ll distract it.” The girl stared up at him, her green eyes swollen with tears, black mascara streaked down her cheeks. “Can you find the car?”She nodded slowly.“Then go!” he commanded, pointing down the path.Shayla turned and started down the dirt path.Now it was just him and the animal. It was near. He could feel it watching him. An animal that size wasn’t going to be frightened of him and a tree branch. He needed fire. He slipped his hand into his pocket to grab his lighter. It was gone. It must have fallen out in the scuffle. He could go back and look for it. He shook his head, realizing how useless that idea was.He stood tall and squared his shoulders, trying to make himself appear larger, bulkier. Then he growled. Low and menacing like his dog did when it felt threatened. Maybe he could fool this thing into thinking he was the alpha creature in these woods.A crash exploded from the forest behind him. Pain raked across his shoulder blades as he pitched forward. He hit the ground. Rolled. And struggled back to his feet. His courage instantly depleted. He glanced around, not sure which way the animal had gone. Not sure which way to run to get away from it. The creature had struck, then instantly disappeared into the shadows. This was a game. It was playing with him.Without thinking, he took off down the trail, praying each step wouldn’t be his last.

***

Shayla stumbled out of the woods screaming and crying. Her vision was so blurred she tripped and tumbled several times down a slope. Her arms and knees burned with bloody scrapes.“Help!” she screamed, “HELP! Oh my God, help me!” She didn’t really believe in God, but if He were listening right now, she wouldn’t turn down His help.Through the trees, she caught the glint of moonlight on Evan’s Jeep Wrangler, which meant she was headed in the right direction.“Help!” she screamed again. Evan mentioned that an old woman lived somewhere nearby. Shayla had smelled smoke from a wood burning stove as they’d hiked up the trail to the hot spring earlier that evening, so she knew the woman’s house must be close.Should she take the Jeep to call the Sheriff, or see if the old lady had a gun or something? Certainly, an old hillbilly woman like her would have and know how to use a shotgun or something to scare stray animals away with.Could Shayla handle the gun by herself? She’d never fired one before. The idea made her sick to her stomach. And the thought of dragging that poor old woman out of her bed to shoot a bear sounded ridiculous. The Jeep it was.The path twisted back into the woods, and she had brief second thoughts. It could be waiting for her, having already eaten Evan. No, no, he was alive. He had to be.So she ran toward the Jeep. Only when she got there, she stumbled into an unfamiliar clearing and an old rusted out Chevy pickup.She stared at the truck with disbelief. This wasn’t his car. It was someone else’s. Where was she? She spun in a slow circle. She’d gotten mixed up in the woods. This was the wrong place. Her chest constricted with fear and panic. If Evan didn’t make it out of the forest, his death would be her fault. She lumbered towards the truck, praying someone was inside. “You’ve got to help me.”

*** Evan Carpenter was no match for the creature chasing him. He ran, scrambling over fallen trees, ducking low hanging branches, dodging outcroppings of rocks. And still, the thing came for him. Gaining on him with every step. He could hear its heavy guttural breaths, but couldn’t see it in the thick blackness of night.He was the star of the basketball team at Whistler High School—the only high school in Baxter County—and one of the best athletes in the state. He was even the first Whistler Marsh senior with a full ride athletic scholarship to West Virginia University up in Morgantown. And now, the miles he’d run through the hilly countryside, the hours he’d invested in the weight room, none of it was helping.The thing that pursued him was faster and knew the terrain better. To the creature, this was a game of cat and mouse—and Evan was the mouse.His feet thudded against the soft earth. Twigs snapped all around him as he pushed through thick underbrush. Dried leaves crackled and popped beneath his feet as he fled. He should never have come this way. The moonlight hardly penetrated this section of the woods. He could barely make out the black outlines of trees as he lurched forward, stumbling over protruding roots and rocks, almost falling down an embankment into a stream.He could hear the thing behind him, but not see it. It was far too dark to see anything besides shadows. Shadows that darted leaped and pounced on him from behind every tree. If it weren’t for the huffing and grunting behind him, he’d think he’d imagined the whole thing.He’d gone back and forth between a mountain lion and black bear, but mountain lions weren’t supposed to exist here anymore. It must be a bear, he decided. An enormous black bear. The kind that some people hunted. But it was so fast. Too fast to be a bear.His shoe caught a root, and he stumbled forward. His hands burned as they scraped against the rough ground.Thump, thump, thump.It was coming.Evan desperately grasped for a weapon in the dark. His scraped palm found a fist-sized stone, and he hurled it blindly into the woods toward the sound. He scrambled to his feet and pushed onward.He saw the sprawling oak that resembled a monster with its evil fingers reaching towards the sky. He was running in circles. He’d seen the tree before. No matter which direction he tried, the animal behind him followed several steps behind, never catching him. Was this what the beast had wanted? To drive him in circles, until he dropped from exhaustion?Maybe the tree was his best refuge?He leaped and grabbed the first branch and heaved himself up, then scrambled to the next and the next. There was a loud crack. The branch beneath him fell away, and so did he. His knees hit the next branch down, and he tumbled backward. He barely got an arm over another branch in time. He dangled there, ten feet above the ground for a moment before the branch under his arm snapped, and he plunged back to the earth. He landed on his knees with a thud and pitched sideways, exhausted. His body ached; his left arm felt broken. And he still hadn’t gotten a good look at whatever was about to kill him.Where was it?After a moment’s rest, he pulled himself up and dashed into the underbrush, not sure where he was going. Disoriented. Exhausted. Terrified. His gut churned the toxic stew of emotions that tasted like a cross between burning gasoline and raw sewage.Evan stumbled and went down. His good hand flew out in an attempt to catch something before he collided with the earth. But it was too late. Gravity grabbed his momentum and sent him spinning knees over elbows down the mountain.He landed with a thud at the base of a large pine tree. His head spun. He was even more disoriented now than he had been moments earlier. He scrambled across the earth, relying heavily on his one good hand, as he tried desperately to get his feet back under him. It was here that he caught a whiff of something new. Something more toxic and sinister than anything he’d ever smelled before. The odor was even more sickening than the taste of burning bile in the back of his throat. What was it?He would never find out. The huffing, grunting creature was on him, biting him. Its teeth tore at his thigh before it moved to his midsection. Excruciating pain ripped through his gut as the beast ripped at him. With one last act of defiance, Evan Carpenter picked up a rock and bashed the creature where he thought its head should be. The animal backed off a few inches, giving him room to roll away. It wasn’t a bear, he realized. It was enormous and black, but this was no bear.Then it was on him again for the last time.

***

The beam of light caught Shayla by surprise. The grizzled voice that followed even more shocking; a woman’s, old and weathered like a pair of gardening gloves.“What’cha doin up my mountain?” the woman asked. “Sign’s posted. Keep out.”Shayla blocked the light with her hand as she stared at the old woman. She could only see her silhouette. She was short in stature and wore a long nightgown that came to her ankles, a coat covered her top half, and heavy boots.“We just wanted to. . . . He’s still up there. He needs help.” She wasn’t making sense, and she knew it. She took a breath to slow down. “Something was chasing us. An animal. It attacked me.” Shayla held up her bloodied arm.The flashlight lowered, and Shayla’s eyes took a moment to adjust. The old woman was petite and hunched, but the double-barrelled shotgun in her hand declared she wouldn’t be called helpless.“There’s a boy up there, and the creature attacked?” her voice was as withered as her body.“Yes. A mountain lion or something. I didn’t get a good look at it,” Shayla said.“Ain’t nothing of that sort up here anymore,” the old woman said. “You say you were near the hot springs?”A sob caught in Shayla’s throat as an image of Evan’s terrified face flashed through her memory. “We ran. Tried to get away. But Evan. He ran back to distract it.”The woman grunted and hobbled to Shayla. “I thought I smelled trouble. Take this.” She handed Shayla a flashlight. “Head up that path to my house. Front door is unlocked. Go inside, lock the door, and do not come out, no matter what.”Shayla flicked on the flashlight. The old woman was already headed into the woods. She moved quicker than Shayla had expected and muttered as she went. Was she a witch?Shayla found the path and headed up the hillside. Five minutes later she found an old cabin-like house. A single bulb lantern hung inside a wide screened front porch. The house itself was small, and even in the dim light, Shayla could see it was in disrepair.She let herself in the front door and locked the deadbolt and chain behind her. In the darkness, her fingers searched for a light switch next to the door and flipped it on. Her eyes scanned the wall, looking for a phone. She’d lost hers at some point up on that mountain. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one. There wasn’t even a television or computer. This lady was getting weirder by the minute. Shayla went to the kitchen, still searching for the telephone. But she struck out again.She checked the lock on the kitchen door at the rear of the cabin, it was locked. She continued searching for a phone. She poked her head into a dark bedroom and flicked on the light. She saw a desk and a bookshelf. She caught sight of a white box with a silver apple. An iPhone! Shayla rushed over and opened the box. The phone was still inside, still in the packaging. A small note nearby simply said:

Aunt Legna,Maybe we can talk more often with this.Love,Ryker​That was all it said, she glanced at the return address, it was somewhere in New York. She’d visited there once with her dad. She pressed the power button, knowing that it was probably useless, but she had to try. The setup screen came on, this phone wasn't activated yet. She sighed and dropped the phone back into the packaging.She looked around the room, still searching for a way to call for help. There were a few framed pictures, and on the nightstand, a well-worn Bible just like the one her Granny kept. If she had a Bible, she probably wasn’t a witch, Shayla realized. She sighed with relief.She’d been through every inch of this house and couldn’t find any way to call out. Nor had she found the keys to that Cherokee down in the clearing. Not that she was brave enough to go back out there. Pain seared from her wounds, reminding her of the horror she’d been through. She found a clean cloth and began to clean the blood from her arms. Her shirt was ruined, she realized. She found some gauze in the bathroom and bandaged her scratches the best she could.She returned to the bedroom and sat down on the bed next to the nightstand. The Bible intrigued her. Her family wasn’t religious; her father a tried and true atheist. He was a scientist, and his company had long been searching for the real secret to life and ultimately putting an end to death.The brown leather Bible within arm’s reach was the antithesis to her father’s view of the world. She’d heard the stories of those who were in danger turning to the Bible and the words within as a last ditch effort to save themselves. She took a breath. She wouldn’t fall for it, opening that book was like signing her own death certificate.An explosion of noise outside stole her attention. She stood up and peered out the window. In the shadows she could make out a rickety gray barn. The sound of chickens clucking, cows mooing, and several goats bleating filtered across the yard.What had set those animals off? Was the old lady back with Evan? Shayla started for the kitchen door. She peered out the window of the door and screamed at the top of her lungs. The creature’s red ember eyes caught in the light from the kitchen.It dashed forward and leaped at the door. The window shattered into a thousand shards of glass, and the door splintered as the beast threw itself against it and through it. Shayla was thrown backward into the cramped kitchen.Pain shot up her spine, and her ears rang. She tried to crawl back to the bedroom. But a mass of fangs and matted fur flew at her. The beast’s cruel teeth clamped onto her leg and began to drag her backward into the dark yard beyond the doorway. She kicked. She screamed. But there was no one to hear her. No Evan. No old woman wielding a shotgun. Only her and this creature that was about to devour her.